Sherriff’s two letters home showed him in a good mood, probably for three reasons. First, the weather had grown cold again, which was ‘much better …than the moist, rainy days that we have occasionally – when it freezes you have a good, hard surface to walk on in the trenches – when it thaws you get a sloppy walk all the way.’

Second, he was happy with the stretch of trench they were defending, as he told his mother:

‘We are having quite a good time up here, and we are in a much nicer spot than our previous one – touch wood, because you can never tell from one day to another how things are going to be – but in any case we have better billets and our dugout is very homely – it is a cellar and we have tables and chairs, a big mirror and pictures on the wall, and a chiffonier in which we keep our crockery etc – this is quite unusual for a front line dugout, and at mess in the evening with a party of 6 of us we are quite happy.’

The first page in Sherriff’s short story about a boisterous dinner party in the trenches of Cité Calonne, probably written in 1917-1918. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/8/1)

He assured her that he was with ‘very nice men’, although officers were always ‘coming and going.’ In fact, of the 10 officers who had been with his Company when he arrived, only three were left, the others having transferred to other Companies and Regiments. He was still enjoying his role as Mess President, although there was quite a lot of work involved in laying in sufficient provisions for long stays in the line – and also in ‘extracting subscriptions from the members’. But, happily, they had a new Mess Cook who was proving adept at cooking ‘wonderful dishes made of quite plain things’.

The third reason for the lightening of his mood, as he told Pips, was the fact that they were being relieved that very day, and moving into Divisional Reserve in Bully Grenay. He was probably cheered up, too, by his view that the war was going well, although he acknowledged that he had no additional information beyond what he read in the papers. But he was always glad to hear how the men from the Sun Insurance office were getting on: ‘I expect the last remaining “eligibles” are now being combed out and you are getting filled up with old men and girls – the office must look very funny now, as all London must.’

There was still no sign of any impending leave for him, and he told his mother that it seemed like years since he had last been home, but that on nice days, when everything was quiet, he could close his eyes and imagine himself standing in Home Park. But she needn’t worry that he was homesick: ‘I am never really lonely or miserable – I simply long to be home and long for the end of the war’.

[Next letter: 10  March]